Roberdo Raval – Hedonistic Freelancer

The discount retailer Lidl UK currently offers a digital DJ controller. A historic date for the DJ culture? Via These Are My Thoughts.

Dear Mister Freud,

I just consumed another huge plate of shellfish, mussels and fish. It was a very fishy, salty, and succulent experience. Also there was a lot of noise and tongue-work involved. It was amazing. I now have a theory why it was so amazing: Because it was a perfect storm of eating drive and sex drive. Perhaps this insight might be helpful for your further research.

Sincerely,

Roberdo Raval

Once again my past catched up with me when I watched this video of David Rastovich surfing some ridiculously perfect waves: The soundtrack is Shpongle’s Dorset Of Perception from the epic Tales Of The Inexpressible album. Appropriately enough it was Rastovich who said: “Try to explain colour to a blind person or try to explain surfing to someone who never surfed – it’s very similar.”

A few weeks ago, Deadmau5 stirred a heated discussion by publishing a both honest and provocative blog post. Inspired by this article, DJ and producer A-Trak makes some very good comments on the current state of the Electronic Dance Music scene in general and the role of the DJ in parcticular:

“As the performance aspect becomes predominant, a paradigm shift is underway. Crowds used to come see DJs for a musical journey. Now they expect to hear specific songs and furthermore, they want to see a show. I can attest to this myself: the craziest crowd response that I get in my sets is when I play my own tracks [...] But one has to wonder, when so much emphasis is put on hit records and mise-en-scène: is there still room for DJ skills?” – Read the full article at Huffington Post

Beautiful words, beautiful pictures.

Star producer Deadmau5 shows courage and proclaims an unconvenient truth: We all hit play. It’s a very provocative blog article about IDM live acts, probably the most controversial part being his scornful comment on beat matching skills. Of course there are many DJs out there who desperately cling to the belief that their vast vinyl collection and their genuine beat matching skills will make them stand out from the ever growing noise of laptop and iPhone Djs. Blended with a proper pinch of envy they proclaim mister Deadmau5 to be a moron… however, he has the bookings, the money and the fanbase all those people are craving for.

A weird optical illusion… just follow the instructions in the video!

Again and again very impressing: The Parkour Masters…

 
…and their painful path to mastery… Read the rest of this entry »

Surreal impressions from Pakistan: Due to the massive flooding of the country, a huge amount of spiders moved up to the trees- and cocooned them in spider webs.

Via National Geographic. Photos © Russell Watkins

 
  Read the rest of this entry »

This great documentary is about the ideas and the philosophy of the amazing Boom festival in Portugal and how they developed over the years.